good food with simple ingredients

Chocolate Cake

by apuginthekitchen on September 12, 2015

This is a recipe from Bon Appetit for Chocolate Cake. What sets this cake apart is the method of preparation. When I read the directions I really wanted to give it a try, I have a simple chocolate cake recipe that I have been using for years and it’s fantastic, it’s a very old recipe from Hershey’s and it’s right on their can of unsweetened cocoa. I love it and have never deviated or tried another recipe, it’s that good.

The method of preparation is the brainchild of the great Rose Levy Beranbaum, she is amazing and I have several of her cookbooks but missed this and it took Claire Saffitz from Bon Appetit to bring it to life. I will let her explain why this method is so genius.

Contrary to the traditional method of creaming the butter and sugar before adding eggs and wet and dry ingredients, reverse creaming does pretty much the opposite. The dry ingredients and sugar are mixed with the fat (oil and butter) plus some of the wet ingredients (eggs + buttermilk + melted chocolate + coffee). The fat coats the dry ingredients and inhibits gluten formation, which would normally result in a tough cake, while the addition of some moisture simultaneously develops just enough gluten to give the cake structure. It’s hard to overmix with this method, giving you a tender crumb. Because there’s less air in the batter due to no creaming, the layers bake evenly and stack up without the need to level or trim. It’s the perfect method for building a layer cake.

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Batter is thick and creamy

Cake

Bon Appetit by Claire Saffitz adapted from a recipe by Rose Levy Beranbaum

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup brewed coffee

⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1¾ teaspoons kosher salt

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1½ teaspoons baking soda

2½ cups (packed) light brown sugar

¼ cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350˚. Butter two 9″-diameter cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper rounds. Butter parchment and dust with flour, tapping out excess.

Heat chocolate, coffee, and ⅔ cup cocoa powder in a medium heatproof bowl set over a medium saucepan of barely simmering water (water should not touch bottom of bowl), stirring until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Let cool, then whisk eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla into chocolate mixture.

Using an electric mixer on low speed, mix salt, baking powder, baking soda, and 2 cups flour in a large bowl just to combine. Add brown sugar, oil, ½ cup butter, and ½ cup reserved chocolate mixture and beat on medium speed until flour is evenly distributed and mixture is smooth, about 2 minutes. Add remaining chocolate mixture in 2 additions, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as needed and beating until smooth after each addition. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top.

Bake cake until top is firm to the touch and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 30–40 minutes. Transfer cake pan to a wire rack and let cake cool in pan 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.

cake sunk in the middle

nice rise

Tomorrow I will frost and taste the cake but have to to say so far I am not in love with it, it took longer to bake than the directions, now that could be my wonky oven that I had repaired to tide me over until I get my new stove. So that could have been a factor but the cake feels drier than my go to Hershey’s cake, I tend to like layer and cupcakes that use oil rather than butter, I find the crumb is perfect, they are light and moist. This cake feels more like a brownie that is a bit overdone. I also like that the Hershey’s recipe is one bowl, super fast and easy. This was not difficult but had steps that I normally don’t have to do. It is possible I did something wrong or it was my oven so I cannot say with certainty that there is a flaw in the recipe.

The proof will be in the tasting so stay tuned because tomorrow I will frost and try the cake.

I have an appointment in a little while and it’s looking grey and overcast outside so will frost and taste tomorrow. Yes, I have made a decision on the stove, will be ordering it soon and will have it soon. Even with the new computer the old one is still not performing well.

Me too, I just put a thermometer in the oven and am testing for temperature right now. I want to be perfectly fair and if it was a mistake on my part or my oven I will let you all know. I have the cake wrapped and will frost it later. Thank you so much!

I finally found some time between all of the work travel lately to catch up and yourss was the first post I saw. What a beautiful cake! Thank you for including some of the baking science. I always wondered why the order of ingredients was so important if everything just ended up together anyway. Now I know. This cake is probably fool proof. Thank you for sharing.

Both cakes look delicious.
I’ve tried this method once. I don’t recall there was such a big difference so I was back to my regular recipes. Now I’m curious about your experiment and results.
By the way, using low gluten (i.e. cake flour) also helps control over-mixing.

This is my first time using this method and I probably will have to agree with you that there is very little discernable difference in the cake. Yes you are right also about using low gluten flour. My hershey’s recipe is always tender and always delicious and I get the same results each and every time. I liked how this cake had butter and oil (the flavor of butter is wonderful) but it took too long to bake which produced over done edges and I am worried about a dry cake. We’ll see today. Thanks Ronit.

Well I think it would have baked evenly if I hadn’t tested the cake I guess at a critical point. The cooking time was off for me and I tested the cake at 35 minutes it was still like soup and deflated so the middle of the cake sunk. It would be good to have a cake that doesn’t need to be trimmed though thanks so much.

I was wondering why your cake looked so different! I’m just going through Yahoo from the most recent email, which is why I read your penuche frosting post first. Actually, the cake I’ve just made isn’t dissimilar as the butter is melted and added to the flour and stuff, something I don’t think I’ve done before. My cake is a lot more basic though. This one does sound really nice, with all of those ingredients. Always so intrigued by the differing techniques.

Yes me to, the method intrigued me so I had to give it a try. I am not sure there is a discernable difference but the recipe does produce a delicious cake. It doesn’t look very good but that could have been due to my terrible oven. Did you notice a difference when you did reverse creaming?

Yes, it’s very easy to make. And less cleaning, which is always a plus. The batter is much more like shortbread. The drawback is needing to add a considerable amount of fruit to keep this from being brick-like! 🙂

Looking forward to your post. Or have you posted the recipe already? The Matriarch made the best fruit cakes I’ve ever had. Probably her speciality. They were often almost black and bathed regularly in whiskey and/or brandy. I used to do the Christmas cake for her. And she always kept an apple in the tin.

It’s always interesting to try a new method/recipe, but reassuring to know that you have a much loved recipe up your sleeve, that you know works each and every time! Sounds like the Hershey recipe wins out this time… 🙂

Maybe it’s because all the years we lived in Spain, I had to make cakes from scratch– and the flour there is great for bread, but heavy for cakes. So when we came back to cake-mix-land, they seemed to light and tender, I was hooked! (but I do agree some cakes– fruity ones and spongey cakes are best from scratch! Love your blog, friend.

You are really torturing us all with this one. Would love a slice of this to go with my tea right now. Let me know if you are interested in guest blogging for surreyKitchen in the future. I’m sure our readers would love your baking. Emma xx

OMG Suzanne, I’ve posted about this recipe and only tried it once. I loved every bit of it, but I had a chocolate ganache on top of it. I made it for my mom’s birthday but honestly I think I made it just for me LOL. I can’t wait to read the next post now.

Of course, we foodies know that cooking is a science. Nevertheless, I love hearing more about scientific cooking. Very interesting! You are right about perfect shape for stacking.
Change of subject… I found round cake cooling racks at amazon, but they’re not as cool as yours. May I ask where you got yours from? 🙂

Suzanne – I’ve never mixed a cake in this order before – I love your scientific explanation and I am definitely going to try it!! I have made Rose Levy Beranbaum’s blueberry pie. Your cake looks just perfect!!

I love learning about the chemistry behind why things do what they do when baking. This is so interesting! I have a chocolate cake recipe that is similar to this recipe, but there are a few differences and the method is different. I am anxious to read your post to see if you liked it!

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